Wireless communication systems are well known in which mobile units can initiate or receive calls while roaming between different radio frequency (RF) coverage areas (sometimes referred to as “cells”). The mobile units communicate via RF resources with base stations distributed among the cells, which base stations are controlled by one or more mobile switching centers (MSCs). The MSCs provide control signaling for the call and connect the mobile unit to other participating endpoints, which may comprise other mobile units or wireline units.
Occasionally, mobile units can encounter service interruption(s) during a call, for example, upon entering a tunnel or reaching a fringe RF coverage area or due to a handoff error, causing the mobile unit to become dropped (at least temporarily) from the call. In such case, the MSC may attempt to page the mobile unit in attempt to find its location, reconnect the mobile unit and preserve the call. However, such network-initiated reconnects can be wasteful in terms of network resources and bandwidth, most particularly when there are multiple dropped calls and hence multiple pages flooding the network. The net effect of unsuccessful reconnection is a decreased revenue stream for the service provider.
A related problem with network-initiated reconnects is that they are performed (or not) without user input from the suspended mobile unit and the user is not informed whether a reconnect is or will be performed. Indeed, the user may not even know when RF coverage is lost because even though the mobile unit may display indicia of lost RF signal, the display might not be readily observed by the user while engaged in the call. Further, once the user believes the call is dropped, the user may reattempt the call, creating even further network traffic as the network will treat the call as a new communication session independent of the session that the network may be attempting to reconnect.
Accordingly, there is a need for a mobile-originated reconnect feature whereby a user may affirmatively request or decline a reconnect attempt rather than rely on a network-initiated reconnect that may or may not occur. Advantageously, the mobile-originated reconnect will be performed without network-initiated pages, thereby minimizing or at least reducing utilization of network resources and bandwidth; the mobile-originated reconnect will be recognized by the network as associated with a suspended (or reconnecting) call state, rather than a new call; and the mobile-originated reconnect will provide for better-informing the user of the reconnect status and RF signal status relative to the prior art. The present invention is directed to addressing these needs.